For Michael Moore it has been a very good year. So good, in fact, that one
Scottish tabloid was forced to concede recently that it had been entirely
wrong in its initial assessment of the Secretary of State for Scotland.

The Sunday newspaper, at the start of 2012, had dismissed him as a “silent but
useless” cardboard cutout who could be expected to disappear without trace.
Late in the year, though, the same tabloid decided on a complete volte-face.
Mr Moore had been transformed into a political James Bond.

Perhaps the comparison with Ian Fleming’s derring-do hero was also misplaced,